Process and Lessons Learned from an Accessibility Audit at the Central Washington University Archives and Special Collections

This chapter focuses on the Central Washington University Archives and Special Collections (CWUASC) located in Kittitas County, a rural area of Washington State. The repository strives to provide access to all users, regardless of modality. The driving question behind this research was what can be improved or modified to ensure patrons with disabilities can access the collections? The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process of recruiting two undergraduate students who identify as disabled to conduct an accessibility audit of the archives’ physical space open to patrons and the library it is housed in. The audit also included a review of the accessibility of select online collections housed in the institutional repository ScholarWorks (v https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/). The chapter will also discuss working with the students, their findings in completing the audit, and steps to take moving forward to make the archives and its collections more accessible for patrons with disabilities. A literature review was conducted to learn how the archives’ strengths and weaknesses with providing access compares with other repositories, as well as what to incorporate in the accessibility audit.